Objectives: The aim of the study was to determine the effect of mindfulness program on the CAREGIVERS’strain on elderly patients with Alzheimer’s disease who were referred to the Iran Alzheimer’s Association 2012.Methods & Materials: This study was a quasi-experimental study with two groups and before and after design. The participants (n=60) were selected by convenience sampling method and then randomly allocated to intervention (n=30) and control (n=30) groups. The intervention group was trained with a mindfulness program for 6 weeks in two sessions (2 hours in each session per week). Data were collected through the caregiver’s strain questionnaires before and one week after the intervention.Results: The mean of CAREGIVERS’ strain in the intervention group decreased from 36.96±6.72 to 30.63±6.37 (P<0.05) while in the control group, the mean of CAREGIVERS’ strain before (35.56±7.61) and after (35.80±6.68) the study did not show any significant differences (P>0.05).Conclusion: The results showed that the mindfulness program could reduce the CAREGIVERS’ strain on Alzheimer’s disease, and these findings can be applicable for all CAREGIVERS.

Background: Providing care for an old person with a psychiatric disorder is a long-term and stressful process exerting negative outcomes on the CAREGIVERS’ physical, psychological, and social health. Objectives: The aim of the study was to determine the burden among family CAREGIVERS of psychiatric elderly and its related factors. Methods: This descriptive study was conducted on 200 elderly psychiatric patients via convenient sampling, referring to the zare teaching psychiatric hospital of Sari, Iran. The sampling lasted from June tomid-November, 2015. Twoquestionnaires of demographics (the elderly and CAREGIVERS) and Zarit Burden Interview were used to collect the data. The data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, such as independent t-test, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Scheffe Post Hoc test. Results: The results indicated that the mean of the CAREGIVERS’ age was 51. 24  12. 16. Ninety-four percent of the CAREGIVERS were married, and 49% had higher diploma education. Sixty-seven percent reported average economic status. The findings showed 68% of CAREGIVERS came up with mild to severe burden. According to the demographics, the hours of care per week (P = 0. 001) and having other psychiatric patients in the family (P = 0. 006) were related to the burden. Conclusions: Significantly high CAREGIVERS’ burden can overshadow the risk of low quality of care the psychiatric elderly patients and expose their CAREGIVERS’ psychological health to danger. Thus, it seems that community-oriented interventions are required to reduce the burden and boost long-term quality of care by informal CAREGIVERS, such as patients’ families.

Background and aim: With the increasing elder population, providing effective family care is turning to be the most important challenge in health and welfare of elder people. The aim of this study was to explore needs of family CAREGIVERS of the patients with Alzheimer disease by analyzing of family CAREGIVERS experiences.Materials and methods: This qualitative study was conducted by latent conventional content analysis. 35 family CAREGIVERS of elder patients with Alzheimer disease participated in the study. Participants were selected based on purposive sampling. Sources of information included documents of participant's diaries, about their problematic and complicated days of caring. Data were analyzed through reading and rereading documents, determining meaning units, extracting of codes and categorizing of them.Findings: Most of participants (80%) were female, with mean age of 56.2 and literate (under diploma level). The findings generated 794 initial codes, which were grouped in 7 categories of: need to knowledge, receiving help from other family members in caring, modification of the home environment, self caring of CAREGIVERS, need "to be visible", compatible and complimentary health care system and caring equipments.Conclusion: Regarding to Global expansion of Alzheimer disease, considering the family care giving issue of elders with Alzheimer disease is essential. Therefore, providing suitable information, establishing education for CAREGIVERS related to disease and patient care management, management of CAREGIVERS’ health, psych–social support and establishing of appropriate complimentary health care system for elderly patients should be considered. These strategies would facilitate the family care giving and support the CAREGIVERS on their journey.

Aim and Background: The burden of caring for the mentally ill is effective as an important factor in maintaining the patient in the community. There is no specific measurement tool for assessing and measuring this issue in schizophrenic patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Schizophrenia CAREGIVERS Questionnaire. Methods and Materials: The design of the present study was descriptive-correlational. About 147 CAREGIVERS of schizophrenia patients admitted to Roozbeh Psychiatric Hospital and the Family Support Organization of Schizophrenia patients in Tehran were selected as a sample. Three questionnaires of schizophrenia CAREGIVERS, quality of life questionnaire and positive and negative symptoms questionnaire were used to collect data. Data were analyzed using Cronbach's alpha, correlation coefficient and heuristic factor analysis. Findings: In exploratory factor analysis, six factors (caregiver ability, interpersonal relationships, independence, social status, caregiver concern and caregiver fatigue) were extracted. In total, these six factors were able to explain 70. 7% of the variance of the 32 questions of this questionnaire. The internal consistency of the subscales was also obtained with Cronbach's alpha in the desired range. The Varimax rotating matrix showed that all questions were usable. Conclusions: The results of statistical analysis show that the schizophrenia patient care burden questionnaire has acceptable psychometric properties and can be used as a valid tool (with a validity coefficient of 0. 67) in the Iranian population.